


Who You Are and What I Am

by Lucy_Ferrier



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23525080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Ferrier/pseuds/Lucy_Ferrier
Summary: It takes time for the hotel to be restored. It takes time for them to come back to each other. but it is restored, and they do come back, and now they have to learn how to be okay again.
Relationships: Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Who You Are and What I Am

**Author's Note:**

> *sighs* I... don't know what this is. It was supposed to be based on a post I made back in 2017 about Toby getting a puppy, and he DOES get a puppy but... that is the only similarity. It just took on a life of its own and honestly, who was I to stop it? I rewatched for the first time in ages and I just had a lot of thoughts and feelings, and you would not believe how excited I was that there were new fics since I'd last been in the tags, but then I read and reread them all in like a week and then quarantine started and I had time to write so... ta da? I hope you like it
> 
> if there are any trigger warnings people want me to tag please please let me know in the comments

…

_You always said you were a rubbish liar, and I always, always believed you. But if you truly were disgusted, then love, you sure fooled me._

_…_

_I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._

_I didn’t mean it._

_I love you._

_I’m sorry_

_…_

It takes time for the hotel to be restored. No one is in a hurry to rebuild in a time where said building will likely be bombed again before construction is even close to finishing, no matter how much Lady Hamilton demands, how much Mr Garland entices, and on one memorable occasion, Freddie outright pleads.

That said, time marches on. Things change. The bombings slow, then after an agonising eleven weeks, finally stop. Belongings are salvaged, bodies recovered. Bricks are re-laid, then carpet, wallpaper and paint, until finally, what can be salvaged of the Halcyon stands as proudly as she always did, perhaps even more so now, having survived, scars displayed defiantly. And when she reopens her doors to the wealth of London, they come pouring in, as they always did, to be served by as many of the original staff as possible.

To say walking into the bar and seeing Adil was a surprise would have been only mostly honest on Toby’s part. There had been passing mention that Adil would return to his position as head barman, although last he’d heard Mr Garland hadn’t yet officially extended the offer. To say that that was the first time Toby had seen Adil since he’d returned from the front would, however, be a bald-faced lie, the type which would have Toby pink-cheeked and stuttering. Not that anyone else would have known or even suspected. It was one of those bizarre paradoxes that only occur in the strangest of circumstances, where it could have almost been those brief happy months of 1940 again. And yet, there were many, _many_ differences wrapped up in stiff and starched white uniforms and stubbornly untailored suits.

In the weeks that had followed the bombing, they tried. They tried so hard, to put the pieces back together with profuse and honest apologies, whispered _I love you_ ’s and soft touches. And Adil, he tried, he tried so hard. To be okay, to put the pieces of himself back, to hide the hurts and wounds, but Toby was so much, it felt like he was everywhere at once, clingy like he’d never been, overbearing in his attempts to reassure himself that Adil was here, still alive, still breathing, and Adil was drowning. He was drowning, and despite everything, despite how much he loved Toby, how beyond grateful he was to get him back, for this second chance, how damned _close_ they were to their old normal, all he wanted to do was run. To make up for everything he’d done, everything he was.

When Adil had told Toby he was enlisting, Toby had had so many questions crowding his mind, grappling in his throat and fighting their way out of his mouth, yet he hadn’t been able to say anything at all. A barely stuttered “ _you can’t”_ and a whispered _“Please no”_ to which Adil replied in a bitter-cold and fragile voice _“Is that an order, sir?”._ Wane grimace and wounded, desperate eyes had passed over Adil’s faux blank ones as they both struggled to hold everything in, struggled to force one thing, anything out. Toby had nodded awkwardly, bit back his tears and wished him luck, and Adil had left, turning back for a moment for a single breathless kiss, promises to write passing over both their lips. If Toby had been able to bring himself to speak then, he would have asked a hundred iterations of “ _why?”_ until the words stopped again, knowing despite everything, that no answer, however honest, would be satisfactory enough.

They had in fact written to each other, as regularly as international, and heavily censored military postage allowed. Adil had been certain at least half of his letters had gotten lost en route, fallen back behind an officer’s desk or buried under evidently more important paperwork, lost in the pocket of a postman’s bag. Both he and Toby had been painfully aware that every single letter sent to and from each other passed through the hands of a likely entirely bored, but still dedicated postal officer who was required to read every letter for security’s sake, and eventually, his own amusement, if only to pass the time. As such, both Toby and Adil had been painfully aware that there was much which was unable to be written and therefore said, but it seemed it was true, that time and distance did make the heart grow fonder.

The distance and the years had allowed for more than enough self-reflection and self-forgiveness. Old promises, honestly given, yet quietly, sceptically poured over in private, became old wounds that finally had the time to be cleaned and stitched and dressed and addressed. When the pair had finally reunited – Toby intercepting Adil at the train station the second he arrived in London, after many long months in a military hospital – It was like they could breathe again, like they were actually happy to see each other, like they could just be _them,_ despite the war doing horrific things to Adil’s pre-existing depression and leaving his body bloody and scarred but nonetheless, whole. The naivety may have been missing, but perhaps that was a good thing, this new brand of caution, this new flavour of relief.

There had been plenty of people, wittering women, with their sons in pristine uniforms and husbands with ghosts in their eyes; middle-aged men just too young to have been a part of the last war and now frustratingly too old for the current one, who had enquired as to when Toby himself was going to enlist. Mentions of the War Office had been frequently met with forced smiles and several insinuations of cowardice, both subtle and not, which Toby was more than happy to return with a grimace and rolled eyes to turned backs. Perhaps there was little risk to himself in sitting behind a desk rather than a gun, but Toby had been certain he could do more for the Allies solving puzzles and punching numbers than as cannon fodder on the front. He had served the War Office for the entirety of the war so far, the only true variation occurring in a minor department change, at his request, after the devastating business with one Mr D’Abbervile.

In the meantime, Lady Hamilton, despite gaining an inkling about the kind of man Toby was from the night of the bombing, had vainly dived headfirst into some of the most efficient denial any single person could be perceived as capable of, for her own sake as much as Toby’s. This mostly entailed spending the next year desperately trying to pair Toby up with _any_ of the eligible ladies in high society, while Freddie nursed his hurt feelings and apparent unfinished business with Emma. Both herself and Mr Garland had though _that_ particular relationship well and truly over. So had Emma. Toby was more than a little infuriated by it all. And if he’d thought Lady Theresa was annoying, these girls were infinitely worse. At least Lady Theresa had _liked_ him.

Inevitably, Lady Hamilton had gone through the remaining stages of grief in the span of about a week, starting with one loud and furious argument after Toby had ended another fledgling relationship before even being introduced to the girl in question, twenty minutes of pleading the following day, and ended with two sleepless nights questioning if it was _really_ too much to ask for at least _one_ of her sons to settle down and give her a couple of grandchildren, upon which she had promptly redirected her frustrations back on Freddie, because enough was enough.

It would appear to have been a particularly ordinary and therefore bordering on boring day, although most days start out as such. But this particular morning Lady Hamilton had decided that she, having ascertained that she could no longer bear the idea of her younger son alone – despite everything, she couldn’t quite bring herself to entertain the idea that he _wasn’t –_ and in her infinite wisdom, come up with the perfect solution to a problem she had entirely made up.

Toby had just wanted to eat his breakfast, but it would seem that was to be postponed for the time being, as Emma, having been enlisted in Lady Hamilton’s endeavour much to her bemusement, entered the room carrying what appeared to be a rather large and elegantly striped hatbox. 

The box gave an indignant cry, which had Toby dropping his cutlery to the table and casting confused and slightly alarmed looks between his mother and Emma, who could only shrug in a slightly helpless manner. Lady Hamilton, for her part, watched her son with poorly disguised excitement, attempting to hide her grin in a napkin with little success. She gestured for Emma to place the box on the floor, whereupon which whatever was inside began in whine in earnest and scratch persistently at the lid until Emma finally lifted it off. 

Toby blinked.

“That’s a dog.” He stated dumbly, staring at the particularly wriggly blonde puppy as it attempted to launch herself out of the box.

“Surprise!” Lady Hamilton crowed, her smile wide and more than a little pleased with herself.

The puppy finally managed to tip the box over and Emma let out a surprised squeak as the puppy tore across the room in overstimulated laps, drool flying behind it in strings and tongue lolling out the side like a mad thing. Priscilla’s smile tightened minutely in irritation before Toby got up and scooped the hyperactive puppy up as she attempted to run past him. Delicately pointed teeth began chewing on his sleeves persistently, and yellow-blonde fur was already beginning to coat his clothes in a way which he assumed was to become his new normal, much to Toby’s fond exasperation. He blinked at the puppy, then back across at his mother, mostly succeeding in hiding his smile.

“For me?”

“Of course!” Lady Hamilton replied with a sarcastic roll of her eyes and a dry smile. “I really do hate to see you alone darling. So! I figured if you’re going to continue to refuse to get yourself a girl, then;” she gestured to the puppy. “This was my solution.”

Toby shot his mother a particularly pointed glare, and Emma attempted to muffle her laugh.

“I am desperate.” she deadpanned in response to Toby’s continuing unimpressed look.

Toby snorted around his poor attempt at hiding his smile.

“Has she got a name?” he asked as he continued to wrangle the puppy. Having resigned herself to being held well above the floor, the puppy took it upon herself to begin investigating the newest thing withing her reach, having grown bored with chewing Toby’s cufflink, snuffling loudly against the crook of his neck and licking insistently at his chin, and Emma found herself unable to continue suppressing her amusement.

“The breeder’s daughter said she was Millie, but don’t feel you can’t change it darling.” Lady Hamilton replied, amusement clouding the otherwise poorly executed icy glare she attempted to send to Emma to assist her attempts in stopping her giggles.

The momentary distraction allowed the puppy to wriggle free of Toby’s grasp, and she yelped as she landed awkwardly on the breakfast table. An indignant sound works its way out of Lady Hamilton’s throat, and the following look of outrage on Toby’s face became the only evidence that there was once bacon on his plate as the tiny dog inhales the breakfast meat and begins working on Toby’s eggs.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Lady Hamilton scolds, gesturing for Emma, though Toby beats her to it and scoops Millie up again before she can react.

“Um. Right.” He says awkwardly as the puppy attempts to wriggle free again. “So, I really have to go to work now. Since breakfast is clearly over. So, um.” Toby gestures to the puppy again.

Emma smiles, looking only mildly anxious as she removes Millie from Toby and placed her on the floor. “We’ll have someone watch her until you get back.”

“Thank you.” He replied, tucking his cigarette case and lighter into his jacket pocket and hurrying out the door. He pauses momentarily to give his mother a quick goodbye and to scratch Millie behind her ears before he disappears out the door. The puppy herself gives a happy huff and attempts to follow him out the door. Wellington sniffed curiously at the smaller dog, the old wolfhound wagging his tail idly as Millie began happily chewing on his leash. Lady Hamilton sighed as Emma exited the room.

…

Adil’s first day back at the Halcyon was almost completely uneventful to the point of bizarreness. The patrons were still largely self-important, socially over-conscious amongst their own peers, and ignorant towards everyone else’s. He mixed drinks on muscle memory alone, favouring his right side ever so slightly as the hours wore on. Tom, who’d returned minus one leg after barely a year at the front, had asked for several rest breaks throughout his shift, his stump and his prosthetic refusing to co-operate, leaving the staff one waiter short more often than was convenient, but they made do. But it had hardly been what one would call busy, especially compared to previous years.

The shift had dragged on well past what it normally would, and having managed to miss Toby completely much to his dismay, at 2 am Adil had shrugged into his coat and begun the icy walk home. His new apartment was even smaller and grottier than the last one, as was the struggle when most of the housing still stood in rubble, and the cheapest flats had been slated as the last to be rebuilt. He was certain there were rats in the walls, there was certainly black mould flowering beneath the taps, and the communal toilets on each floor had a nasty habit of backing up. Even calling it a flat felt generous, considering it consisted of a room with a bed and a stove, and another with a sink, a cracked mirror, and a door with a lock.

_Prrrrp!_

The large tabby cat seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but if you’d asked Mr Robbie several hours earlier, you would know that she had arrived around midday to exchange a frighteningly large rodent in exchange for kitchen scraps, a trade the chef had been more than a little reluctant to make. As it were, she now sat neatly on the wall as if waiting to escort Adil home. He scoffed lightly. It was a cat. They had little interest in the routines of people.

Nonetheless, as he made his way from the back of the hotel to the street, The Cat kept pace with him, crooked tail upright and hooked over happily, long striped fur streaming behind her, watching Adil as she trotted beside him, only stopping once he entered his building. Adil looked back once before closing the door behind him, The Cat once again sitting neatly, paws together and tail wrapped around it, purring like a broken engine. She blinked at him, and he huffed impatiently with himself and made his way to the stairs.

He unlocked his door with shaky hands, tossing his coat and jacket to the side with unusual carelessness. The door closed itself with a _bang,_ and Adil flinched. He tried to hold himself still, the lull of traffic outside despite the hour settling him a little but for the shout of old and poorly made engines, the rattle of the train running under the street, and he felt himself slide down the wall to the floor. Seconds ticked into minutes and the tremors stopped and his breathing slowed. He tucked his knees under his chin, staring numbly at his shoelaces. He ought to go to bed. He had another shift tomorrow. And another after that and another after that and-

Adil sat on the floor, knees tucked under his chin, staring numbly at his shoelaces and his mind told him lies. It whispered _things won’t be better just because you’re back_ and _you’re too broken to fix_ and _did you think you could be loved like this_ and _you wish you were dead you wish you were dead I wish I was de-_

The Cat knocked the one framed picture he owned off the windowsill as she launched herself awkwardly through the open window, and it fell to the ground with a resounding _thunk,_ the glass having long since been cracked and removed. She skittered nervously as she landed, dramatically throwing herself into a sitting position and licking one grubby white paw. The Cat’s eyes were goopy and possibly blind in one, and her right ear looked like it had been chewed by an overly affectionate dog or possibly a large rat. Having decided that she had recovered enough of her dignity, The Cat stretched lazily and sauntered over to Adil, who was now watching her with mild concern.

 _Marrrow?_ She asked politely, batting at his forearm lightly.

“What do you want?” Adil replied bluntly, lifting his head and relaxing his hold around his knees. The Cat took the opportunity and pushed past his elbow and into his lap. She kneaded idly at his stomach before curling up against his chest and resumed her previously insistent purring, loud and rhythmic.

Adil blinked down at her and winced as her weight settled over his injured side, hands hanging awkwardly in the air as if unsure where they belonged, before cautiously reaching down and stroking through The Cat’s matted tabby fur. Her purring got impossibly louder, and he felt himself relax in turn.

“You better not have fleas.” Adil muttered darkly, despite the way he began to scratch under her chin.

…

Work, whilst normally fairly engaging in as much as calculating figures and building spreadsheets could be, was infuriatingly depressing – no recent bombings in London that month had meant converting names to numbers of the men in France, calculating casualties and fatalities, damaged equipment, ammunition costs, the callousness of it all well familiar but no less exhausting. Toby was not the only man in the room who sighed in relief at clock off time.

He was accosted in the foyer by a haggard-looking concierge before he could even think to look in the bar for Adil. Upon entering his room, Toby understood very, _very_ clearly why the other man looked even more exhausted than Toby felt.

“What happened?”

“I’m so, _so_ sorry, Sir, but it would seem that it has been some time since Wellington spent time with a younger dog? And, um… well. They were upsetting the guests in the dining room, so Lady Hamilton thought, perhaps, placing Millie in your room would give her time to calm down? But… um…” the younger boy peered down at his feet anxiously as he fiddled with the silver buttons of his uniform. “…and most of the cleaning staff have gone home for the night. Sir.” He added hastily.

Toby stared across his room in muted shock. The room hadn’t even looked this bad after MI5 had ransacked it. Books left on the small table by the mantle, now lay with pages strewn across the room, the legs of said table already looking well gnawed after only a handful of hours. The bin by his desk lay upended, everything once inside now torn into significantly smaller pieces and soggy with spit and hopefully not something else.

Toby had not been this grateful that he’d stopped taking work home in a very long time, as he spied his pen, almost disappearing amongst the spilled ink now permanently staining his desk, punctured by tiny sharp teeth. But perhaps most distressing was the state on the bed; the quilts torn in places and smelling vaguely of urine, the pillows completely destroyed, down feathers littering the mattress and the surrounding floor in a way that vaguely resembled a snowdrift.

At the sound of voices, Millie came trotting out of the bathroom – and someone knew Toby was not brave enough to inspect the state of _that_ just yet – to investigate, then picking up speed when she recognised Toby, faceplanting for barely a moment when her momentum proved too much for the absurd size of her paws.

“Right, well, I’ll ah, I’ll speak with my mother. In the mean-time would it be possible for someone to fix the bed things? The girls in the morning can fix the rest if there aren’t many on duty right now…” Toby chewed his lip and scooped up the puppy, who was still prancing at his feet, and brushed a stray feather out of her fur.

The concierge let out a quietly relieved sigh. “Of course, Sir.” He nodded and left the room, trying not to hurry too much. Toby rolled his eyes. He was clearly a new hire.

With all that had evidently happened, Toby never did make it down to the bar. A brief argument with his mother, several hours and four chambermaids later, Mrs Hobbs going red in the face with mostly contained rage at the initial sight, and Kate looking rather close to exhausted tears by the end, the worst of the mess had been removed, the mattress cleaned and the bed remade. Then suddenly it was past midnight and there was nothing Toby wanted more than to collapse in bed and pass out until his alarm the following morning.

His en suite had indeed looked like a small bomb had gone off in it, toilet paper shredded, shaving cream and toothpaste streaking most surfaces. He shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if Millie had gotten a hold on his razor. Still, a cardboard box lined with a couple of towels was placed in the corner behind the bath for the time being and having been fed, Millie was then placed inside, and the door firmly shut. Toby then proceeded the throw himself unceremoniously face down on his own clean sheets with a groan.

The relief was to be short-lived.

Half an hour of Millie crying and scratching at the door had Toby back out of bed and cursing both the puppy and his mother, for this ill-thought idea and his own inability to hold a grudge. He settled Millie on the bed beside him with an exasperated smile and a grunted utterance of every pet owner’s famous last words – _just this once._

…

The night had felt impossibly short when Adil had dragged himself out of bed at whichever ungodly hour he’d thought was a good idea to set his alarm for, The Cat curled tightly behind the crook of his knees. He managed to get himself dressed and shaved before his own dead-eyed stare had sent him back to bed, The Cat’s oddly encouraging chirps bullying him through breakfast and tying his shoes.

Really, it was his own fault he was up so early. His shift didn’t start until midday, but he’d be damned if he was going to miss Toby again today, so here he was, turning into the staff entrance just after dawn, excuses of stock deliveries on his lips.

“Well, if it isn’t her majesty the Queen back again,” Robbie called out, mock glaring over Adil’s shoulder at The Cat. He reached out to scratch under her chin before setting down a plate of what looked suspiciously like chicken offcuts. He looks up at Adil. “She comes by most days.” He mentions by way of explanation.

Adil could only nod, questions written across his face in overlapping script but unable to pick one to voice. He thought perhaps he should have allowed himself an extra hour of sleep.

“I don’t normally feed the strays that come by,” Robbie continued, “but Queenie here’s a damn good mouser, and we’ve been getting a lot of rats around the bins recently.”

“She seems a little beat up to be catching rats, doesn’t she?” Adil replied, and reaches up to stifle a yawn.

“Eh, well she’s not as young as some of the other cats we get around here, but I wouldn’t call that one broken,” Robbie said, gesturing to where Queenie was laying stretched comfortably on the concrete, idly licking a paw having finished her breakfast. “She’s a survivor, that one.”

Adil huffed a smile and bid Robbie and The Cat – Queenie, he mentally amends – farewell and headed for the stairs.

His knock was soft, but he almost didn’t expect a response from Toby this early, the sun barely peeking over the skyline and tentatively pushing through the smog. Adil glanced both ways down the hallway out of habit as much as necessity despite the cleaning staff knowing better than to bother going to any of the Hamiltons’ rooms before their respective owners were seen downstairs. He paused and contemplated how welcome he’d be if he just opened the door himself – it wasn’t locked – when the door suddenly swung open, apparently on its own. Or so Adil thought, until he looked up and saw Toby, standing there in badly buttoned pyjamas and a mess of bed hair that was so comfortingly familiar. Toby broke into a tired but excited grin when he saw Adil in his doorway, grabbed his sleeve on muscle memory, and pushed the door shut behind him.

“Hello,” Adil mumbled around a yawn and Toby pulled him into a hug. Adil slipped his arms around Toby’s waist, tracing patterns onto the small of his back through his pyjama shirt, while Toby clutched familiarly up his arms and shoulders before letting his hands settle behind his neck.

“Are you awake enough to talk, or do you want to go back to sleep for a bit first?” Toby smirked at the shorter man around his own yawn, Adil smacking him lightly on the chest in retaliation as he pulled back from the embrace with a wry smile and tried not to yawn again himself.

Something cold, wet and snuffly suddenly shoved itself up past his sock, making Adil jerk back in shock. The aforementioned something gave her own squeak of surprise as she tripped over her paws as she jumped back from him.

“Wha-” He stopped. “Is that a puppy?”

“Oh, um. Yes, this is Millie. Mother gave her to me yesterday for some reason.” Toby shrugged awkwardly. “You should have seen the mess she made in here yesterday while I was at work, I thought Mrs Hobbs was going to have a stroke.”

Adil snorted in amusement as he crouched down to say hello to the small dog. Millie, having quickly recovered from her surprise, was more than thrilled to meet another person, finding Adil’s shoelaces particularly interesting and huffing happily as he scratched behind her ears.

“I’d heard there was some sort of drama in the dining room yesterday.”

Toby rolled his eyes. “Definitely Mother’s fault.”

He blinked when Millie than began whining at the door. “Are there many staff around yet?” He asked Adil.

“Mostly kitchen I think, although Mrs Hobbs lot will be arriving around now too, probably.”

Toby chewed his lip nervously, then opened the door for Millie. He stuck his head out long enough to watch her launch herself in the direction of the staff stairs and disappear around the corner.

The pair blinked, not knowing what else to do. “She’ll be fine, right?” Toby winced.

Adil pursed his lips. “Of… course.”

“Right.”

Adil sighed and leant back against the wall. He worried his lip slightly between his teeth.

“Toby…”

“Hmmm?”

Adil sighed again and slid down the wall, crossing his legs awkwardly when he reached the floor. He knocked his head back against the wallpaper and he looked back up at Toby.

“Can we talk?”

“Haven’t we been talking?”

“I meant about us.”

“Oh.” Toby began to fidget with his little finger, signet ring having been removed the night before and not yet replaced. He chewed in the inside of his cheek as he moved to sit down on the floor beside Adil.

“I don’t… I don’t know how to make it work. I know everything is… everything is okay now, but I still…” Adil trailed off and began fiddling with a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve.

“We can try and be like before, can’t we?” Toby asked, picking at a hangnail.

“Can we?”

“Well, it won’t be exactly the same, but that’s okay, isn’t it? Wasn’t that the point of… everything?” he said gesturing wildly with one hand and resisting the urge to chew the nails on the other.

They each sat on the floor leaning against the wall studiously ignoring the faintest brush of thighs and the fact they’d linked their little fingers together, as if afraid the other would suddenly disappear. Toby tipped his head back against the wall, staring desperately at Adil in his peripheral, while Adil intently inspected the hem of his jacket.

“Maybe I just think you could do better.” Adil murmured, defeated.

“Well, I don’t know anyone better than you.” Came Toby’s equally quiet reply, “And even if I did, _apparently,_ I can be a bit of an arsehole.” Adil snorted and bit his lip to stifle his grimace, old memories and old hurts threatening to rise to the surface. “So no, I don’t think I can do better than you. I don’t even know how I was lucky enough to get you in the first place. Let alone after…” he flung one arm out in an awkward gesture. “…after everything. And it’s been a long time since I blamed you for any of it.”

“You’re such a sap.” Adil hummed as he leant over so he could rest his head on Toby’s shoulder, offering him a wane and watery smile. And _god_ it was ridiculous, he knew, of course he knew, that Toby hadn’t meant those words, someone knew he’d apologised enough times, but lying alone in the dark, there were times when his brain told him the words were true regardless, that it didn’t matter if _Toby_ didn’t think those things, when that _thing_ in his head thought so anyway.

Toby returned it with his own closed-lipped smile, leaning down to ghost a kiss over Adil’s hairline, and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “I missed you. So much.” He whispered into his hair, Adil reaching up to return the embrace. He swung a leg over Toby’s and straddled him, taking a moment to look at him, biting his lip hesitantly before Toby surges up and kisses it free.

Adil didn’t hesitate on Toby’s tie, paused for a millisecond on his shirt buttons. He kissed him hard and fast in the vain hope that Toby would be distracted from his own jacket buttons, would fumble too much on his shirt buttons, wouldn’t notice the marks that littered his body from the war. But there was little Adil could do to distract Toby’s hands from sliding under his tank top, tracing the bullet hole that had claimed most of his left kidney, the blistered remnants of the infection, nor the additional surgical scar from the removal of the rest of the dying organ, as Adil lent into each touch, each gentle brush of fingers. He stubbornly refused to shrug his open shirt all the way off though, under the guise of fiddling with Toby’s undershirt, masking the shrapnel scars that littered his back and shoulders, if not all the ones on his chest, with puckered and indented wounds still pink and purple and fresh enough to sting. But Toby’s hands found then those too, traced the raised flesh and the parts where chunks were missing, found the dents where his ribs had healed wrong and the ones where they hadn’t healed at all and he never once hesitated, fingers light and gentle and Adil could have cried. In happiness and grief and relief.

…

Afterwards found them stretched out together on the bed with legs entwined, Adil’s head tucked under Toby’s chin, their clothes scattered across the room. There was sunlight cheerfully attempting to peak past the blackout curtains that Toby hadn’t bothered to open, and he smiled slightly when Adil’s hair ticked his nose and threatened to make him sneeze.

He traces the bullet hole above Adil’s left hip, memorises the dips and the rises, the hollows and the hills. He tries not to be so selfish as to be glad, glad because it wasn’t fatal, glad because it brought Adil home, to him, that it meant that Toby hadn’t had to wait any longer, the end of the war still not quite in sight. He would have waited forever, that didn’t mean he hadn’t been just the slightest bit impatient.

Adil huffed slightly when he woke up enough to notice what Toby’s doing.

“If you’re trying to tickle me, you should know I can’t actually feel anything there.” He stretches himself out again before curling up closer to Toby, wrapping his arms around his chest. “How long was I asleep?”

“About an hour, give or take. I should probably start getting ready for work actually.” He sighed. He really did like his work, but it was so comfortable, right here, in this spot, with this company, at this moment. Adil echoed his sentiments with his own sigh, clinging just a little bit tighter before letting go.

“Are they still making you work Sundays?” Adil asks, back turned as he hunted around for his clothes.

“Not this one,” Toby replied, a smile in his voice.

“Good.” Adil grins. He makes a mildly triumphant sound as he finds his trousers, pulling out a key from the pocket. “This. Is for you.” He presses the key to Toby’s chest, the other man reaching up to claim it as Adil kisses him. “My shift finishes at 1:30 tomorrow morning, but feel free to let yourself in whenever.”

Toby thanks him with a toothy grin. “I may even find it in me to abandon church tomorrow.”

…

He doesn’t mean to; he never means to. He tastes gunfire on his lips, the sing-song of wailing men at his fingertips. Blood in his nostrils, bitter and acrid, metallic and _sweet._ He doesn’t mean to; he never means to. But he wakes up screaming.

They’re going to get caught. Again. But he can’t stop screaming, until it reaches his ears, until it reaches Toby’s, tucked in the bed beside him (his bed, Adil’s bed, thank god, because if it had been Toby’s, if it had been Toby’s bed, Toby’s room, Toby’s _hotel-_ ) wide-eyed and bleary with sleep.

His elbow connects with something, something that grunts, a stifled sound of surprise and pain, then his knee and his feet, and he’s stuck, he can’t get out, something’s got him, something’s got him, he can’t get up-

He’s caught in the sheets. Twisted and sweaty and-

His tears taste like salt and he can’t remember how to breathe.

“I’m sorry.” Adil gasps, right hand shaking slightly, the left wracked with violent tremors that in the back of his mind he knows won’t stop for hours. His ribs hurt, and he fears he might have popped his stitches again, before remembering they’re long gone. They’re all long gone.

“I’m sorry.” He says again, just as wounded, just as scared, just as broken and shaking, but slightly steadier.

“I’m sorry.” He says, one last time, as he finally frees himself of the twisted sheets, and the last restraints of sleep, and locks himself in the second room.

…

“Adil?”

Toby can hear him crying through the door. Quiet. A sniffle every now and then. A shuddering sob.

“Adil, can you please open the door?”

His own breath comes out in short bursts, quiet and shallow, on the edge of controlled. He doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t know what to do, how to help. He hates feeling so useless and he feels his own control slipping and his breathing speeding up.

…

When Adil does open the door, his eyes are bloodshot and puffy and stinging. He tries to apologise as Toby reaches for him, but all that comes out is a strangled croak. He buries himself against Toby, as if that somehow might make everything okay, as if that would make Toby unsee, unhear everything that was shattered and broken and falling apart. _Too broken_ his mind tells him, _too broken_ it whispers.

 _It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_ Toby whispers back. It drowns out the thoughts and he tries not to flinch. They stay like that for several minutes, waiting for the shaking to stop and their breathing to ease. The tremor in his left-hand doesn’t ease, but he doesn’t expect it to, however frustrated he might be by the fact. He clenches it in Toby’s shirt in a doomed attempt to stifle it.

“Your cat’s back again.” Toby murmured in an attempt at a joke, a few later minutes to rebreak the silence.

“Not my cat.” Adil grouched to Toby’s shirt, fingers curling around the fabric in white-knuckled fists, but playing along nonetheless.

“Oh? Who’s is she then?” He teased with the smallest bite of sarcasm he could bear, continuing to rub up and down Adil’s back as he did so, only clinging a little bit in return.

“Not my cat,” Adil repeated. “She’s her own cat. An argument could possibly be made that she’s Mr Robbie’s cat”

“Well, she’s licking the plates from last night’s dinner.”

Adil finally drew himself back slightly from Toby, although he didn’t release his grip. He peered past him to where Queenie was indeed licking gravy dregs off the plates sitting by the stove and screwed up his nose in distaste.

“Wonderful.” He grimaced, falling back against Toby.

“Speaking of Mr Robbie, did I tell you that Millie got into the kitchens yesterday morning after we let her out?” Toby continued to babble nervously.

“You mean after _you_ let her out.”

“Yes well, she stole half of someone’s wedding cake.”

 _Prrrrrp?_ The Cat inquired.

“Hello Queenie,” Adil muttered, not looking up. He sniffed, tried to swallow, but it gets stuck, throat hoarse and swollen from crying, and probably screaming. He felt heavy, like he could have slept for a week. He would have been tempted to try if he thought it was actually possible.

“Can we talk about it?” Toby asked hesitantly, suddenly timid as he bits his lip and anxiously traces patterns across Adil’s shoulders, marking scars as constellations, fiddling with the collar of his undershirt.

Adil would have bristled against him at the change of subject, but he couldn’t find the energy to fight. He was _tired._ God, he was tired. “Okay.” Is all he says, drawing back and letting go. He lifts Queenie off the stovetop and goes to sit on the bed, winding his fingers through the mats in her fur and stubbornly not looking at Toby.

Toby twists the skin around his knuckles anxiously, not sure what to do with himself until Adil nods at the spot next to him in tired resignation. He sighs again.

“Just ask me, Toby.”

“Sorry, um.” He smiles nervously, still twisting his fingers rhythmically as he sits carefully on the bed beside Adil, drawing his knees up under his chin, mindful of leaving enough space so as not to crowd Adil. “What happened? This morning?”

“Bad dream.”

“…Does it happen often?”

“Sort of.”

Toby tried to soften his glare at the stilted replies, but Adil saw it anyway. He took a breath and tried again.

“Sorry. It’s been bad since I was at the hospital. I thought it would go away when the fever broke, but well.” He shrugged. “Obviously that didn’t happen. It’s not every night, just… a lot.” Adil sighed and went limp against the wall, pulling Queenie with him. The Cat gave an indignant _marrow_ at being jostled and resettled herself against his ribs in protest.

“Thank you.” Murmured Toby when he realised Adil didn’t have anything left to say, reaching out slightly and linking their fingers together, making Adil force a very small and tired smile.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Toby fell back slightly, resting his head against the wall behind them. “Scared for you. Not of you. Mostly anyway. I have to say, it was a hell of a way to wake up.” He joked. “You looked like… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was awful, and I didn’t know how to help you.”

Adil huffed slightly, but didn’t otherwise say anything. What could he have said? _He_ didn’t even know how to help himself; how could he ask that of Toby?

Queenie stood up and stretched, kneading heavily at Adil’s chest, making him wince before she walked off the bed and leapt clumsily out the open window. Toby yawned.

“What time is it?” Adil asked.

Toby stretched awkwardly over to where his watch was on the floor beside the bed. “… A little after six.” He groaned. “D’you think you can go back to sleep?”

“Probably not,” Adil muttered apologetically, fiddling with Toby’s ring. “I don’t mind lying with you if you want to though.”

Toby smiled as he pulled Adil down next to him, wrapping himself up against him.

“Is this okay?” He murmurs into the top of Adil’s head, grunting in surprise when he’s pushed back onto his back, Adil unceremoniously draping himself over Toby’s chest.

“Better.” He mumbles into Toby’s collarbone, ignoring his surprised laugh.

…

It gets better. Not perfect, and certainly not like before. Some days Adil feels like everything is going backwards, and he can’t sleep at all, can barely eat, and he’s angry and hurt with nothing and no one to justifiably take it out on. But slowly, slowly softly, it gets better. Two steps forward and one step back is still progress. He starts sleeping through the night again consecutively, he finds it in himself to smile at the patrons in the bar without forcing it so much. He seeks out Toby when he can, Toby lets himself into his flat when _he_ can, and he doesn’t feel as smothered, doesn’t feel so much like he’s drowning all the time, and he doesn’t want to run from it anymore. Queenie hassles him for naps and scraps, brings him dead rats and one memorable occasion, an entire pigeon. He finds the time to brush out her mats, patches her wounds alongside his own. Adil and Toby both learn that Millie is rather good at working Toby down and away from panic attacks, but neither can figure out how to stop her from climbing up on Toby’s desk and chewing up his pens. The intrusive thoughts become more annoying than something he actually believes, and he smiles a little easier.

To say walking into work each day and seeing Toby sat behind the bar was not a surprise, would be only mostly honest on Adil’s part. Toby was usually in the bar waiting for him, that soft and secret smile on his lips, if Adil hadn’t found the time to meet him beforehand. To say he was used to it, that bizarre moment of déjà vu, that fluttering moment of happiness, of hopefulness before he returned that tiny secret smile and began mixing Toby’s drink, was where the lie lay, the type that would have him stifling a giddy laugh of relief.

It’s far from perfect. But the war is turning, and it feels safe to hope again. They stand together, in the privacy of their rooms, all the stronger for having survived, scars displayed defiantly.  
  
---


End file.
